The
fourth child of George and Anna Maria Boyer,
the grandfather of Lewis
Elmer Boyer, was named David Boyer.
David was born,
according
to his baptismal certificate, in Manheim Township, on the 8th of
April 1806, at the hour of 9 in the evening. The certificate,
written in German and hand illuminated, said that the baptism
was performed by the Lutheran pastor.[1]David was
baptized at the Red
Church on August 10, 1806. It was
just two years after his grandfather, Johann Friedrich Boyer, had
been buried from the same church.

Gun made by David Boyer of
Orwigsburg
and passed down through his family

To
George Bayer and his wife Maria Hartinger is born a son, David Bayer,
April 8, 1806, at 9 p.m., in Mannheim Township, Berks Country.

David was a gunsmith, the maker of a
long rifle known as a "Pennsylvania-Kentucky" rifle (see photo above).
One gun known to
be made by David was stamped "D. Boyer," and some gun experts
believe that other guns stamped "D. Boyer" may also have been made by
David of Orwigsburg. Others point out that there may have been two
people named D. Boyer who made guns
at various times, the first one around 1800, making rather rustic
flintlock rifles, and the second one around
1840, using a cap percussion system and showing superior craftsmanship.
Some experts also think that D. Boyer the gunmaker may have
lived in Reading, Pennsylvania, while others believe he spent his
entire life in Orwigsburg, 30 miles north of Reading, also in Berks
County. (Orwigburg was included in the new Schuylkill County
when
Berks
County was divided in 1811.)

The sections below
provide information on
David Boyer's role as a gunsmith in Orwigsburg and on his two wives and
his
nine children. They also discuss the debate over whether
there
were one or two gunmakers who signed their work "D. Boyer,"
and
whether these gunmakers lived in Reading or
Orwigsburg.

David
was a maker of a long rifle known in some quarters as a
“Pennsylvania Kentucky” rifle. One of his guns
passed down through the hands of the oldest child in each generation
of the Lewis Elmer Boyer family, and in 2008 it was in the possession
of Karen Lloyd,
the daughter of Floyd Elwood Boyer, Jr., in Florida. The rifle
is stamped "D. Boyer."

It
is believed that the "best rifle" award of the Schuylkill
County Agricultural Society in 1860 was for a gun made by David,
possibly this same gun. The certificate was made out to
David's son George
B. Boyer, but George
was only 20 at the time and it is believed he was exhibiting
his father's
work product. David was then 54, presumably a prime age for the
production of high-quality guns. The David Boyer rifle that was passed
down through the
Lewis Elmer
Boyer family (possibly a different gun but probably the
same) won the "first
premium" award for "best antique firearm" when it was entered
into the Kentucky State Fair in 1974 by Floyd Elwood Boyer,
Jr., a great-great-grandson of David.

Certificate for "Best Rifle"
presented at the 1860 Schuylkill Country Agricultural Fair to
George B. Boyer.
George, then 20, apparently was exhibiting a rifle made by his father,
David Boyer of Orwigsburg.

It was reported that David also made a
gun for his son Charles, who died
at the age of 19 in 1869. That gun -- said to have been
marked with
wild
turkeys forming a cross -- was given to another son
of
David, William B.
Boyer, after Charles died. William's son
Robert
Boyer remembered that the gun was in the possession of his father all
of his life.
When William died in 1925, it was understood that that gun was passed
on to a grandson, Elwood Eckert, the son of Mary (Mame) Boyer
Eckert. However, in 1987, Elwood’s daughter Lillian Eckert
Haring, of Belvidere, his only known survivor, said she had no
knowledge of a
“Boyer Gun” in the family.[2] Thus, the trail to that
particular gun apparently has been lost. Lillian Haring died on
November 16, 2008 at the age of 90.

Other
Guns by "D. Boyer." There is no
known gun that bears the inscription "David Boyer," but there has been
considerable interest among gun
collectors and other parties interested in long rifles that have been
signed or stamped "D. Boyer." Some believe there were at least
two individuals making guns who signed them "D. Boyer," and some
believe that the "D. Boyer" who made guns came from Reading,
Pennsylvania, rather than from Orwigsburg, which is 30 miles to the
north. Some of the rifles were thought to have been made around
the year 1800, and these were distinguished from the ones made about
1840-1860. The later guns were considered to be of a higher degree of
professionalism, while the earlier guns were more rustic, without
decorative brass plating, intended for practical use around a farm.
Other
analyses of the Pennsylvania long rifle may be found here
and here.
Some of
the more rustic guns were called "Schimmel" rifles, and several
Schimmel rifles have been located bearing the inscription "D. Boyer.".
One expert
provided this explanation for this type of rifle:

The "Schimmel" is normally built on the
Berks and Lehigh Co. pattern. The survival rate of the original plain
guns is very low as they were used very hard and often hung in the barn
and became rusty and moldy, hence the German word " Schimmel."

Among
the guns that have
been located bearing the inscription "D. Boyer," there is no
first
name firmly established as associated with the "D." Some
believe the name is David, apparently basing it on David, the known
gunmaker
of Orwigsburg, and some believe it could be Daniel. Apparently, the
only "D. Boyer" clearly identified as a gunmaker is the David Boyer who
is the subject of this chapter. As indicated in the text
below,
this David, who was born in 1803 and died in 1883, is identified as a
"gunsmith"
in the census reports for Orwigsburg in 1860, 1870 and 1880.
The 1860 report called him a "master
gunsmith."
But if there were "D. Boyer" guns being made about 1800, they would
not have been made by the David Boyer of Orwigsburg, who would have
been too
young (not even born) at that time.

TheKentucky Rifle
Association Bulletin,
Volume 30, Number 3, of Spring 2004, contained a long article titled
"David Boyer, Schimmel Rifles of Berks County." This included
photographs of a number of rifles stamped "D. Boyer," in
much the same pattern (see photo below) as the signature on the gun
known to have been
made by David Boyer of Orwigsburg, the focal point of this chapter.
However, the article presented no evidence that the "D" in
these signatures stood for David.

An example of the view that there were
two people named "D. Boyer" is a study reporting that in the
collection of the Western Pennsylvania
Historical Society, in Pittsburgh, there was at one time a gun carrying
the
inscription "David Boyer, Orwigsburg," engraved in script
letters on the lid of the patch box.[3] The author examined numerous
records and published this conclusion (the text contains a number of
errors but is presented here as indicative of the research that has
appeared about this gunmaker):

David
Boyer’s name first appears in the assessment records of the
Borough of Orwigsburg in the year 1837. He owned a house and a lot
but no description of his occupation is included. At later dates he
acquired six valuable units of real estate, mostly with improvements
on them; some of these are described as being located in the
sprawling country side of North Manheim Township, adjoining the
borough. Records indicate that Orwigsburg propered at mid-century,
for it was the county seat, not far from the Philadelphia-Sunbury
turnpike, and was near the busy water course of the Schuylkill Canal.
In this prosperity Boyer seems to have shared.

Since
no will or administrative record appears in the court house, some
form of intestacy must be presumed, or he may have moved from the
county.

David
Boyer is thought to have been a second generation gunsmith, although
no documentary data on an earlier one exists. That some guns of an
earlier period are attributed to a craftsman named Boyer is the main
source of information in this matter. Both the earlier Boyer and
David were specialists in the making of over-and-under guns. Both
makers made fine guns that were typical of their period and are
eagerly sought by collectors.[4]

Note: David
Boyer’s tombstone in Orwigsburg, and the baptisms of his
children, indicate that he did not leave town, as suggested by the
author of this study. And while there might have been a contention
that David was a second-generation gunsmith, no evidence
has been located to show that his father George or his grandfather
Johann Friedrich Boyer made guns.

A
1905 report on David's son William B. Boyer said that although
David was indeed a gunsmith, he did that work only for a brief number
of years. In later years, it was said, he lived on a farm he had
purchased and was a leading citizen of the community. The study said
that David was a deacon in the Lutheran church and at one time held
the office of councilman.[5] (The reference to the farm in this
section also seems inaccurate, because census and church records are
quite clear that David lived, at least for his last 50 years, within
the town of Orwigsburg. David was listed among those who
took communion at St. Paul's
Lutheran Church in 1847 and also from 1880 to 1882, the year before
he died. His wife Hannah was also listed at the church in 1845 and
1846, as well as from 1880 to 1887. The suggestion that David was a
councilman has not been confirmed, although it would seem logical
considering his apparent prominence in the town.)

More
Sightings of the Boyer Rifle. In
1986, there was a "Boyer Rifle" on display in Washington at
the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, on
the third floor in the ordnance section (it was no longer there in
2005). In a general description of the Kentucky Rifle, the display
said:

To
meet the conditions of hunting and warfare in America, Swiss and
German settlers in Pennsylvania altered the massive jaeger rifle of
their homelands. The resulting weapon was lighter,
long barreled,
and more accurate. First known as the Pennsylvania rifle, it later
achieved fame as the Kentucky rifle because of its use by
frontiersmen such as Daniel Boone.

Under
a long weapon entitled the "Boyer Rifle," the Smithsonian
display said:

This
double barreled weapon, made about 1800 by Daniel Boyer of
Arwigsburg, Pa., could be used as either rifle or shotgun because one
barrel was rifled and the other smooth. The barrels were rotated
into firing position by releasing a hinged catch forward of the
trigger guard. They were fired by a single lock of English make.

The
"over and under" flintlock gun in the museum came
from the collection of Ralph G. Packard, reportedly a wealthy,
world traveling hunter. It had a caliber of 0.45, barrels of
36
inches, and a length of 52 inches. The "over and under" gun had two
barrels that could be rotated into position for firing. The gun itself
was engraved "D.
Boyer." Question has been raised as to whether this gun might
not actually be the work product of David Boyer of Orwigsburg, and
not “Daniel Boyer.” In 1986, a museum specialist at
the
Smithsonian said he was certain that the gun on display there, an
outstanding specimen, had been made in the "golden age of the
Kentucky Rifle," which ran from 1790 to 1810, and therefore
could not have been made by the David Boyer of Orwigsburg born in
1806.

Another Boyer gun – a
0.45
caliber Pennsylvania Kentucky
flintlock rifle, was purchased by Nancy Boyer Sandt
and
her husband Wayne Sandt, of Easton, Pennsylvania, in 2005.
It too was stamped “D. Boyer” in block
letters on
the top barrel flat. This was a single barrel gun, 54 1/4 inches long
with a smooth barrel 39 1/4 inches long. The single barrel was
described as full octagon, 0.45 caliber.

In
contrast to these guns, the David Boyer
gun that
in 2008 was in
the possession of descendants of Floyd Elwood Boyer,
Jr., had
two barrels "side by side," with one smooth round
barrel and
one shaped as a heptagon. It was not a flintlock gun but was fired
by a cap on top of the percussion system, indicating that it was made
at a later time. (Gun experts report that few if any
flintlock
rifles were made after 1840.) Also engraved "D.
Boyer" (see photo at left),
it was 48 inches in length, with a barrel of 33 3/4
inches, weighed 10 pounds, and contained brass trim on curly maple
wood. Upon examination of photographs of the gun, the expert said
that the David Boyer gun was superior in craftsmanship to the one in
the Smithsonian collection, but that also reflected the fact that it
was undoubtedly made much later than the one at the Smithsonian. It
was probably made in the late 1840s. This conclusion appears to
bolster the contention of gun historians that there was a
different "D. Boyer" who made guns around 1800, possibly in
the Orwigsburg area.[6]

At
least one study offered the hypothesis that early American gun makers
were descended from craftsmen in Europe and that the gun-making
skills were transported across the Atlantic. An example is given of
a rifle made in Germany "by a member of the Boyer family"
which was "almost identical to a detail on a rifle made by D.
Boyer of Pennsylvania." The author said this similarity in
itself proved nothing, but he hoped it would inspire further
investigation of the European roots of Kentucky rifle makers[7]. If
this thesis should prove out,
it could mean that the two
immediate ancestors of David, his father George and even the
immigrant Johann Friedrich Boyer, were also gunsmiths, but there is
no other report to substantiate this idea.

Gun
stock of David Boyer's gun

"Side
by side" barrels -- rifle or shotgun

Cheek
side wood carving

Is
there a
"Daniel Boyer, Gunmaker"? Tracings
of the Boyer family have not turned up any "Daniel Boyer"
or "D. Boyer" who was making guns in Orwigsburg about 1800.
There is a
report that David's cousin Daniel, the son of Johann
Friedrich's second son, Frederick, was a gunsmith, but he was also
born too late to have made guns around 1800. That Daniel was born
about 1811 in Schuylkill County and moved to Maumee, Ohio, and later
to Gratiot County, Michigan, where he died in 1874.[8]
Johann Gottfried, the tenth child
of Johann
Friedrich Boyer,
had a son
named Daniel, who was born March 30, 1812, in Schuylkill County and
died on October 25, 1884, in Ohio, but there is no information that
he was a gunsmith. Michael Boyer, the fourth child of Johann
Friedrich, had a son named Daniel, born in 1785; he could have been
making guns around 1800, but there is no evidence that he had that
trade. Also, it appears that David himself had a brother
Daniel,
born in 1799. Thus, there were at least four cousins named Daniel
Boyer, born within 26 years of each other, but none of these seems to
be the man making guns a generation before David Boyer. As indicated
in previous chapters, there were also other Boyer lines in
Orwigsburg, and the record books and cemeteries are replete with
people named "Daniel Boyer." But there is no further
evidence that any of them was a gunsmith.

The
only other indicator that there was another Boyer gun maker appears
in the 1850 census for North Manheim Township, where a Benjamin
Boyer, age 30 (thus born in 1820), is described as
“gun
smith.” According to the census, Benjamin was the son of John
(a shoemaker) and Kate Boyer, age 50 and 48, and the brother of Daniel,
26, Henry,
24, and Abraham, 20. However, the relationship of this John Boyer
and his son Benjamin to this branch of the Boyers has not been
discovered. There
was a
report that another
"Boyer gun"
hung for years over the mantle in the Daniel Boone House in Birdsboro,
Pennsylvania, but in the 1970s it was stolen. (A representative of
Daniel boon House said in 2005, however, that it was true that an
antique gun had been stolen, but he was not certain it was a Boyer gun.)

One further Boyer gun sighting
emerged in 2008 with discovery in California of an "over and under"
rifle, not a "side by side," with an overall length of 47 1/2 inches
and a barrel length of 32 inches. The gun was described as
"over
and under" with one hammer, like the one in the Smithsonian Institution
described above. If the trigger guard was pulled while the trigger was
cocked, the barrels could be rotated manually until the desired barrel
was at the top and clicked into firing position. This gun, with
elaborate
filigree on the brass plating, was stamped "D. Boyer," much like the
others, but it also contained words that appeared to be
"Reading
PA,"
thus giving support to those who believe there was a Boyer gun maker
who lived there. Another word was stamped on the gun near the
word "Reading," but it has been found illegible (see photo below). It
must be said, however, that review of
census reports for the Reading area reveals no gunmaker with the name
Boyer. Unfortunately, the information provided in census
reports around 1800 contained only limited information, and occupation
was not part of what was provided.
Below are
photos of the California gun, which may be
contrasted with the Orwigsburg gun above.

Gun
found in California: Right
side, patchbox detail, cheek side

D.
Boyer inscription

Apparently
stamped "Reading
PA" with other (illegible) wording on the right

Double
barrel:
Over and under

Conclusions?
It is clear there was definitely a
David
Boyer who lived in Orwigsburg and made long rifles. Did he leave
Orwigsburg? Did he make guns in Reading? Or is there another "D. Boyer"
who made guns, either in Reading, or around 1800, who is not getting
the credit he deserved? Here
is a short chronology of the life of David Boyer of Orwigsburg:

April 8,
1806 Born in Mannheim Township, near
Orwigsburg

August 10,
1806 Baptized, Red Church, Orwigsburg

1829
Son Joseph Boyer born in Orwigsburg

1830
Census shows David's father but apparently not David, then 24

1832
Daughter Violetta born in Orwigsburg

1836
David buys property in Orwigburg, twice

1837
Son Lawrence born in Orwigsburg

1838
Daughter Matilda born in Orwigsburg

1839
Son George Boyer born in Orwigsburg

1840
Census shows David, master gunsmith, living in Orwigsburg

1843
Son William Boyer born in Orwigsburg

1847
Daughter Annie born in Orwigsburg

1847
Took communion in St. Paul's Church, Orwigsburg

1850
Census shows David living in Orwigsburg

1850
Son Charles born in Orwigsburg

1850
David does not appear in the census

1854
Son Thomas reportedly born in Orwigsburg

1854
David buys more land in Orwigsburg

1860
Census shows David, gunsmith, living in Orwigsburg

1860
Son George, 20, wins prize for best rifle at Schuylkill County fair

1866
Son Charles confirmed in Orwigsburg

1869
Son Charles buried at Orwigsburg

1870
Census shows David, gunsmith, living in Orwigsburg

1870
St. Paul's Lutheran Church records show David a "faithful Lutheran"

1880
Census shows David, gunsmith, living in Orwigsburg

1883
David dies, is buried in Orwigsburg

Many of the published reports on a
gunsmith named "David Boyer" or "D. Boyer" appear to contain errors,
given the lack of clear identification. There is no indication in the
list above that David left Orwigburg at any time.
Nevertheless, it is possible that he spent some time in
Reading, which is 30 miles to the south, probably a ride on horseback
of one or two days in this era and probably not too difficult.
While
there is no evidence to back this up, one may speculate that David left
Orwigsburg to go to
Reading to learn the gunsmith trade, and that this resulted in the
words
"Reading PA" being appended to one or more of his rifles. No
other "D. Boyer," gunsmith, appears in census records of Orwigsburg and
none at all in Reading. If there were earlier "D. Boyer" guns, made
around 1800, they must have been made by someone else. However, several
have pointed out that the lettering in "D. Boyer" on these guns appears
interestingly similar, including a small tail on the right side of the
Y on some of the guns, suggesting that all of the stamping was done by
the same person. Information is
welcome from anyone who can contribute to the solution of the mystery.

Note: Wikipedia
contains a section on the Boyer Rifle
which includes other information, some of it is at variance with the
presentation here. The Wikipedia page links back to the
discussion
here.

David
Boyer’s Family

David
was married twice. He first married Susannah
Montgomery,
who
had one child, Joseph Boyer. After Susannah’s early death,
David married Hannah
Beck, and they had eight
children. No
further information could be developed on Susannah, and the marriage
is reported only in American Boyers. It is not
known when she
was born or when she died. We can presume that she was about the
same age as David, who was born in 1806. It is likely they were
married before their son Joseph was born in 1829, and Susannah must
have died before David married Hannah. Hannah’s first child
was born in 1832. Thus, Susannah must have died between 1829 and
1832, possibly in childbirth when Joseph was born.

David Boyer ???The
photo here is taken from an old tintype, two inches by one-and-a-half
inches, found with other photos by members of the family
of William
B. Boyer, a son of David. There was no
identification on the tintype, but the place where it was found
suggests that this may have been a relative of William Boyer. The
thought that this is David Boyer of Orwigsburg is pure speculation. If
David is about 50 in this picture, it may have been taken about 1860.

Hannah
Beck was born on November 19, 1810, judging by the age given on her
tombstone, and was thus four years younger than David. She came from
Carbon County, according to one report.[9]The
1830 census for Manheim Township shows the family of David’s
father George Boyer, but David, who was then 24, is not among them.
Possibly David was not then living with his parents, for the
1830 census also showed the household of a David Boyer in neighboring
Brunswick Township, next to Orwigsburg. This included one male
between 20 and 29 (presumably David), and one female between 30 and
39 (possibly Susannah). There was no listing of a male under 5,
although Joseph, born in 1829, was then 1. And the census report also
showed one female between 10 and 15, one female between 5 and 10, and
six girls under 5, and these eight children are a mystery. Possibly
they were offspring of others in his family. Or perhaps this was
another David Boyer entirely.

The
1840 census shows David’s father George still in Manheim
Township, and David is not with him. But in
1840, the census
shows the household of David Boyer in Orwigsburg (apparently David had
moved into
town from Brunswick Township). That census showed one male between
30 and 40, one female between 20 and 30, one male between 20 and 30
(perhaps an error in age by the census-taker), two females between 5
and 10, and two males under 5. These could have been David Boyer,
who was then 34, David’s second wife Hannah, who was then 29,
possibly David’s son Joseph (although he would have been only
11), and David and Hannah’s children Violetta, 8; Matilda, 5;
Lawrence, 3; and George B. Boyer, less than a year.

No
record of the David Boyer family could be located in the 1850 census.
This is unfortunate, since that census, for the first time, recorded
the family members by name and age. David must have continued to live
in Orwigsburg, however, judging by other documents around that time.
The Schuylkill County record books contain several transactions
concerning his land acquisitions. On January 26, 1836, when he was
30, David paid $149 to Jacob Huntzinger, Jr., for a one story
log dwelling and lot in the town of Orwigsburg; the site was not
described in the deed. Ten months later, on November 10, 1836, he
paid $33 to William Potts for lot number 129 on Tammany Street in
Orwigsburg, the second lot from the intersection of Warren and
Tammany Streets. What it was like in 1836 is unknown. In 1986, that
intersection was at the top of a steep hill, with small private homes
on three corners and a large knitting mill on the fourth.

On
August 10, 1854, when he was 48, David paid $43 to Henry Beyer for a
one acre triangular piece of land in Orwigsburg, bounded by
land
already owned by David, next to land owned by the estate of James
Price, and by the Orwigsburg Middleport Road; it is possible
that this land adjoined the property at Warren and Tammany Streets.[10]

In
1860, David
reappears in the census, and this family is recorded:

David
Boyer, 53, master gunsmith, owner of real estate valued at $500

and
personal property valued at $200

Hannah
Boyer, 50

Violetta
Boyer, 24

George
Boyer, 20, apprentice gunsmith

William
Boyer, 17

Anna
Boyer, 13

Charles
Boyer, 9

The
1870 census
seemed to show that all but one of David’s
children
had gone off on their own. It recorded this family:

On
August 30, 1841, David paid $10 for a large family Bible, printed in
Munich, Germany, in 1798, and bound with heavy leather straps. In
1986, that Bible was in the custody of Donald J. Boyer of Easton,
great-grandson of David's son William B. Boyer.
The Bible
contained only limited family information, It did include reference
to the confirmation of David's son Charles B. Boyer on December 24,
1866, at the Reformed Church in Orwigsburg (three years before
Charles died), and a receipt for taxes of $15 paid to James W. Kaiser
in Orwigsburg on May 16, 1889 (six years after David's death).

Boyer Row in the Lutheran
Cemetery in Orwigsburg. Gravestones include those for
David and his wife Hannah Beck, and for Walter Ellsworth Boyer, a
grandson.
No stone has been located for David's first wife, Susannah Montgomery.

David
died on June 23, 1883, at the age of 77 years, 2 months, and 15 days,
according to his tombstone and according to the burial record at St.
Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Orwigsburg, which notes in the
margin that he was "a faithful Lutheran." Hannah died
eight years later, on December 29, 1891, at the age of 81 years, 1
month and 10 days. Their tombstones, labeled "Father" and
"Mother," are easily found in the northwest corner of the
Old Lutheran Cemetery, among many other Boyer tombstones.[12]

Although
David was known to have owned property, the extent of his estate is
unknown. Besides the real property transactions noted above, there
exists, possibly as part of the settlement of David’s estate,
a
handwritten receipt from G. H. Gerber, attorney, dated January 2,
1893, ten years after David’s death. The paper indicates that
George B. Boyer, "trustee," a son of David, paid $567.67 to
be distributed to two other children of David, $402.67 to Mrs.
Elliot, and $150 to Lawrence Boyer, with $15 going for the lawyer's
fee. George’s will, written years later, bequeathed to his
surviving children "my one quarter interest in the farm
situated in the Borough of Orwigsburg." George had moved to
Easton at the age of 33, and perhaps this farm had been inherited
from David. What happened to that property is unknown.

The
Children of David Boyer

There
is only limited information on most of the nine children of David
Boyer. [13]

1.
Joseph
Boyer,
the only child of David's first wife, Susannah,
was born in Orwigsburg in 1829. According to the American
Boyers
(1986), he was a farmer. The records of St. Paul's Lutheran Church
note that he married Rebecca
Deibert on September
16, 1851,
when he was 22 and she was 18. They both died in 1908, when he was
80 and she was 76, and they are both buried in the Lutheran Cemetery
in Orwigsburg.

Tombstones in the Lutheran
Cemetery in Orwigsburg for
Joseph Boyer and his wife Rebecca Deibert Boyer.
Stone at right memorializes six of their eleven children.

American Boyers
(1986) lists 11 children for Joseph
and Rebecca. A tall obelisk tombstone lists six of them, none having
lived past age 17. On the tombstone are references to Henry Pierce
Boyer (1852-55), Sarah
W.Boyer
(1853-62), OliverBoyer
(1861-78),
Hannah B.Boyer
(1863, 14 months), Annette
L.Boyer
(1870-71) and
Agnes Boyer
(1872-78). The other children were Mary
CatharineBoyer
(1854-1922), who married Daniel Riegel; Edgar Boyer, who
lived
with his
sister Savannah in 1910; SavannahBoyer
(1859-1948),
who married James Heiser (1856-1943); JamesBoyer
(1866-1944), who married Emma Long; and ClaraBoyer, who married
Morgan
Michael Zuber.[14] (This Joseph Boyer is easily
confused with another Joseph Boyer
whose life span (1828-1905) was almost identical; the other
Joseph was a first cousin, the son of David's brother Daniel.[15])

Savannah
Boyer, one of the children of Joseph and
Rebecca, married James
Heiser, and they had six children: Walter Ellsworth Heiser
(1889-1979), Hazel Marie and Harrold Heiser
(twins who died at birth in 1894), Cora Heiser (died in 1918),
Florence (Flossie) Heiser, and Howard (Pete) Heiser. Information on the
Heisers was developed by Ann Heiser of Hamburg PA, a granddaughter of
Walter Ellsworth Heiser, and her father, Harold Heiser.

2.
Violetta
Boyerwas born to David and Hannah Boyer on January
8, 1832, and married Henry
B. Schock, a cousin, the
son of
David's sister Kate
Schock. According to the 1986 American Boyers
text, they had four children: Thomas, George, Kathleen and Hannah
Schock. Violetta died on December 12, 1904, at the age of 72, and
was buried in the Lutheran Cemetery in Orwigsburg next to her
(unmarried) daughter Hannah Schock (1870 1943). St. Paul's
records note Violetta's confirmation on March 21, 1847, when she was
15, as well as her death.[16]

3.
Lawrence Boyer
was born on March 1, 1837. His baptism
certificate, citing David Boyer and wife Hannah Beck as parents, was
at one time in the possession of Walter Stanley Boyer.
Lawrence was
married to Philippine
(“Phoebe”) Faust. They
are
named in the St. Paul's church official record of baptism of a son,
Johann Peter, on September 12, 1861. The record names the father as
"Lorenz" Boyer, and says the sponsors at the baptism on
September 12, 1861, were "David Boyer and wife Hannah Beck,
grandparents." The 1907 obituary of Lawrence's brother, George
B. Boyer, said that Lawrence lived in Indiana. The 1986 American
Boyers text reported that in 1910 Lawrence Boyer lived in
Coupeville, Allen County, Washington. It says that he and Phoebe had
four children – Johann Peter, Susan, Kate and Professor
Charles
O. Boyer.[17]

4.
Matilda Boyer
was born about 1838 and lived in Tower City. Her
marriage to William
Elliott in 1875 was the third
marriage for
each of them. Matilda had first married Frederick C. Jenkins,
a native of Wales who was active in the Civil War; Jenkins died of
wounds suffered in the battle of Cold Harbor. Their children were
Violet, Annie and Mary Jenkins. Later she married John
Dietrich,
and they had one child, Howard Dietrich. After John's death, she
married her third husband, William Elliott. He had
been born
in England in 1830, married Jemima Little in 1852, and traveled to
America in 1857. Jemima died in 1860, and in 1862 William married
Mary Tobias. It is not known how that marriage ended, but when
William was 45, he married Matilda, then 37. They married in Tower
City, where William was a well-known merchant and member of
the
City Council for eight years. They had no children. When William
retired, it was reported that Matilda bought his house on Grand
Avenue in Tower City. An account of William's life said that "no
residents of the borough were held in higher estimation." William died
on January 16, 1916, at the age of 86.[18]They had no children.

5.
George B. Boyer,
the father of Lewis Elmer Boyer, was born on
October 29, 1839, in Orwigsburg. He married Sarah Ann
Dreher about
1873 and moved the family to Easton. George worked for the
Lehigh Valley Railroad. They had six children, but only Lewis Elmer
Boyer and his sister Sallie lived beyond the age of 22. Sarah
Dreher Boyer died
in 1890 at the age of 47, and in 1895 George married Adeline
Apgar.
He died in 1907 and is buried in Hay's Cemetery,
Easton,
with Sarah and three of their children. Adeline died in 1915 and is
buried with the Apgar family in Lebanon, New Jersey. More
detail
on George and his
family is provided in the section on the Boyer Family of Easton.

6.
William B. Boyer was born on April 29, 1843,
according
to
baptism records at St. Paul's Church.[19] He moved to Easton about the same
time as his brother George, and he
was also a railroader. He was married to Martha A. Yeager.
A separate section on William is
included in the link to the Boyer
Family of Easton.

7.
Marie
Barbara "Annie" Boyer, according to baptismal
records of St. Paul's Church,[20]
was born on April 25, 1847. She married Phaeon Gerber
(1851-1920) and lived in Lehighton. She died on April 30,
1935,
at the age of 88, according to their tombstone in the Reformed
Cemetery in Orwigsburg. The stone gives her name as "Annie M.
Gerber nee Boyer." They had no children.

Tombstones in the Lutheran
Cemetery for two of the children of David Boyer. Annie Boyer married
Phaeon Gerber and lived to be 88. Charles B. Boyer died at
the age of 19. One of David's guns reportedly was made for Charles.

8.
Charles B. Boyer,
according to his tombstone, located next to the tombstones
of David and Hannah, was born August 12, 1850, and died December 23,
1869, at the age of 19 years, 4 months and 11 days. This apparently
is the same person as the "Karl Boier" who is identified in
a baptismal certificate which was once in the possession of David's
great grandson, Walter Stanley Boyer. Maintaining German
spelling, an English translation referred to the parents as David and
his wife "Tohana, maiden name Beck," and said that their
son, "born in Orwichsburg, Schulkyl Caunty, in the Staat of
Pensylvanien in Nord Amerika, was baptized and given the name
Karl Boier" on April 6, 1851. The gun that was passed along to
William B. Boyer reportedly was first made by David for Charles.[21]

9.
Thomas B. Boyer,
mentioned for the first time in the 1986 volume of American
Boyers, is reported to have
been born on
June 28, 1854, and to have died less than three years later, on March
22, 1857. A printed list of tombstone inscriptions shows him to be
buried in the Old Lutheran Cemetery in Orwigsburg, but no grave could
be located in 1985, nor any records of birth or death at the
Orwigsburg churches.[22]

FOOTNOTES TO THIS
SECTION

1 Baptismal certificate quoted by
Walter Stanley Boyer (1898-1984), great grandson of
David, in his unpublished account of the Boyer family (1972). The
witnesses were George Neyer and his wife Elizabetha. Red Church
records, page 67.

2 Information on the gun in the
possession of William B. Boyer contained in letter postmarked March 13,
1954, from Helen Boyer, 808 Lincoln Street, Easton, daughter of Robert
and granddaughter of William B. Boyer. The letter was sent to L. Arthur
Boyer, son of Lewis Elmer Boyer and a grandson of George B. Boyer, who
was the brother of William B. Boyer. The letter said the gun markings
also included "Ft. Nt." centered over a "W," and also "865
H." These markings were unexplained. Lillian Eckert Haring was
interviewed by Mildred Boyer Harris, Belvidere, New Jersey, in 1987.

6.
Comments of Harry
Hunter,
Smithsonian specialist in the Division of Armed Forces History,
National Museum of American History, 1986.

7
Cresswell, Mary Ann,
editor, Thoughts
on the Kentucky Rifle in its Golden Age, Trimmer Printing,
York, Pennsylvania (1960), page 11. The volume also contains, beginning
at page 232, an extensive account of the gunmaker Nicholas Beyer, or
Boyer, who was a gunsmith in 1807 and 1810 in Annville Township, in
Lebanon County.

10 Deed Book 15, page 258; Deed Book
15, page 572; and Deed Book 44, page 438, respectively, Schuylkill
County Courthouse, Pottsville. Regarding the absence of David from the
1850 census documents, there is one report that a David Boyer of
Orwigsburg could be found in the 1850 “census
index,” at page 202, but that source cannot be located. As
best could be determined by this author, the 1850 census pages for
Schuylkill County that are available through the Ancestry.com website,
especially the segments of the county in and around Orwigsburg, contain
no references to David or named members of his family, including those
with unique names such as Matilda and Violetta and Hannah. This could
be an error of the census-taker, or perhaps David and family were
traveling at the time of the census or simply refused to cooperate.
Otherwise, his family seems clearly identifiable in the census reports
of 1830, 1840, 1860, 1870 and 1880.

11 The census records are viewable on
the genealogical website Ancestry.com.
Parts of them have been
transcribed, but to obtain the full reading of the households surveyed,
it is best to view the handwritten results of the census-takers notes,
which are also available for each person named.

12St. Paul's
typed manuscript, page 79, records of the death of "Davie" Boyer,
giving the same dates of birth and death as the tombstone. The official
church records mention the death in several places but use the name
"David Boyer."

13 The 1986 American Boyers
text, pages 601-02, deletes three people who were mentioned in the 1940
version as children of David and Hannah Boyer. Lillie and Barnie were
discovered to be children not of David but of his son William B. Boyer.
"George" (Trenton) was discovered to be either the same as David's son
George B. Boyer, who lived both in Easton and in New Jersey, or George
A. Boyer, who was another child of David's son William B. Boyer. Thomas
is the only addition to the list of children of David in the American
Boyers 1986
text who was not in the 1940 version.

14 See American Boyers
(1986), pages 602-604. For the marriage to Rebecca, see St.
Paul's
typed manuscript, page 47.

18Schuylkill County,
page 175. See also American Boyers (1986), page 604.

19St. Paul's,
page 6. Parents are listed as "David and Hannah" Boyer. See also American
Boyers (1986), beginning at page 612.

20St. Paul's,
page 17. The parents of "Marie Barbara," described as "Davie and Hannah
Boyer," were sponsors. American Boyers (1986)
referred to her as “Annie Marie Barbara Boyer,”
page 614.

21St. Paul's
typed manuscript, page 25, says Charles was born on August 13, not
August 12, and names his parents as "Davis and Hannah." The burial
records, in St. Paul’s, page 78, as well
as the official records, use the same dates for birth and death as the
tombstone. The official record of his death describes him as the "son
of David." The Schuylkill County study referred to
a Charles who died at the age of 21, but the correct age was 19.

22 List of tombstone inscriptions in
Book 10, Schuylkill County Historical Society, Pottsville, noted in
letter of American Boyers editor Donald A. Boyer,
January 16, 1986.